The Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869)/Chapter 54
CHAPTER IX.
ABSURDITIES WHICH FOLKS WITHOUT TASTE CALL POETRY.
THE pieces written by Ursus were interludes,—a kind of composition out of fashion nowadays. One of these pieces, which has not come down to us, was entitled "Ursus Rursus." It is probable that he played the principal part himself. A pretended exit, followed by a reappearance, was doubtless its praiseworthy and edifying subject.
The titles of the interludes of Ursus were sometimes in Latin, as we have seen, and the poetry frequently in Spanish. The Spanish verses written by Ursus were rhymed, like nearly all the Castilian poetry of that period. This did not puzzle the people. Spanish was then a familiar language; and the English sailor spoke Castilian as the Roman sailors spoke Carthaginian (See Plautus). Moreover, at a theatrical representation, as at Mass, Latin, or any other unknown language, has no terrors for the audience. They get out of the dilemma by adapting familiar words to the sounds. Our old Gallic France was often treated in this irreverent way. At church, under cover of an Immolatus, the faithful chanted, "I will make merry;" and under a Sanctus, "Kiss me, sweet." The Council of Trent was required to put an end to this sacrilege.
Ursus had composed expressly for Gwynplaine an interlude, with which he was well pleased. It was his best work. He had thrown his whole soul into it. To give one's entire talent in the production is the greatest triumph that any one can achieve. The toad which produces a toad achieves a grand success. You doubt it? Then try it yourself. Ursus had carefully polished this interlude. This bear's cub was entitled "Chaos Vanquished."
Here it was. A night scene. When the curtain drew up, the crowd, massed around the Green Box, saw nothing but intense darkness. In this darkness three shadowy forms were moving about,—a wolf, a bear, and a man. The wolf acted the wolf; Ursus, the bear; Gwynplaine, the man. The wolf and the bear represented the ferocious forces of Nature,—unreasoning hunger and savage ignorance. Both rushed on Gwynplaine. It was chaos combating man. No face could be distinguished. Gwynplaine fought enfolded in a winding-sheet, his face being covered by his thickly falling locks. All else was shadow. The bear growled, the wolf gnashed his teeth, the man cried out. The man was down; the beasts overwhelmed him. He called for aid and succour; he shrieked out an agonized appeal to the Unknown. He gave a death-rattle. To witness this agony of the prostrate man, now scarcely distinguishable from the brutes, was appalling. The crowd looked on breathless; in a minute more the wild beasts would triumph, and chaos re-absorb man. A struggle—cries—howlings; then, all at once, silence.
A song in the distance. Mysterious music floated out, accompanying this chant of invisible spirits; and suddenly, none knowing whence or how, a white apparition arose. This apparition was a light; this light was a woman; this woman was a spirit. Dea—calm, fair, beautiful, awe-inspiring in her serenity and sweetness—appeared in the centre of a luminous haze, the very spirit of dawn. With a voice light, sweet, indescribable, she sang in the new-born light,—she, the invisible, suddenly made visible. They thought that they heard the hymn of an angel or the song of a bird. On beholding this apparition the man, starting up in ecstasy, struck the beasts with his fists, and overthrew them.
Then the vision, gliding along in a manner difficult to understand, and therefore the more admired, sang these words in sufficiently pure Spanish for the English sailors who were present:—
"Ora! llora!
De palabra
Nace razon.
Da luz el son."[1]
Then, looking down, as if she saw a gulf beneath, she went on:—
"Noche, quita te de alli!
El alba canta hallali."[2]
As she sang, the man raised himself by degrees; instead of crouching he was now kneeling, his hands elevated towards the vision, his knees resting on the beasts, which lay motionless, as if petrified. Turning towards him, she continued,—
"Es menester a cielos ir,
Y tu que llorabas reir."[3]
Then approaching him with the majesty of a star, she added,—
"Gebra barzon;
Deja, monstro,
A tu negro
Caparazon."[4]
And placed her hand upon his brow. Then another voice arose, deeper, and, consequently, still sweeter,— a voice broken but inwrapt in a gravity both wild and tender. It was the human voice responding to the voice of the stars. Gwynplaine, still in obscurity, his head under Dea's hand, kneeling on the vanquished bear and wolf, sang:—
"O ven! ama!
Eres alma,
Soy corazon."[5]
Suddenly from the shadow a glare of light fell full upon Gwynplaine. Then, through the darkness, the monster was fully exposed.
The excitement of the crowd was indescribable. Shrieks of laughter resounded. Mirth is created by startling surprises, and nothing could be more unexpected than this termination. Never was there a sensation comparable to that produced by the ray of light falling on that mask, at once so ludicrous and terrible in its aspect. They laughed on account of his laugh. Everywhere: above, below, behind, in front, at the uttermost distance,—men, women, old grey-heads, rosy-faced children; the good, the wicked, the gay, the sad, everybody. And even in the streets, the passers-by who could see nothing, hearing the laughter, laughed also. The laughter ended in a wild clapping of hands and stamping of feet. The curtain dropped, Gwynplaine was recalled with frenzy. Hence an immense success. Have you seen "Chaos Vanquished"? Gwynplaine became the rage. The listless came to laugh, the melancholy came to laugh, evil consciences came to laugh,—a laugh so irrisistible that it seemed almost an epidemic. There is one epidemic from which men do not fly, and that is the contagion of joy.
Gwynplaine's successes, it must be admitted, had not extended beyond the lower classes. A great crowd means a crowd of nobodies. "Chaos Vanquished" could be seen for a penny. Fashionable people never go where the price of admission is a penny.
Ursus had a very exalted opinion of this work, which he had brooded over a long time. "It is very much in the style of one Shakspeare," he said modestly. The juxtaposition of Dea added to the indescribable effect produced by Gwynplaine. Her white face by the side of the gnome, represented what might have been called divine astonishment. The audience regarded Dea with a sort of mysterious anxiety. She had in her aspect the dignity of a virgin and of a priestess. They saw that she was blind, and yet felt that she could see. She seemed to stand on the threshold of the supernatural. The light that beamed on her seemed half earthly and half heavenly. She had come to work on earth, and to work as heaven works, in the radiance of morning. She found a hydra, and created a soul. She seemed like a creative power, satisfied, but astonished at the result of her creation; and the audience fancied that they could see in the divine surprise of her face wonder at the result she had achieved. They felt that she loved this monster. Did she know that he was one? Yes, since she touched him; no, since she accepted him. Without going too deep, for spectators do not like the fatigue of seeking below the surface, something more was understood than was perceived. And this strange spectacle had the transparency of an avatar.
As for Dea, what she felt cannot be expressed in human words; she knew that she was in the midst of a crowd, and yet knew not what a crowd was. She heard a murmur, that was all. For her the crowd was but a breath. Generations are passing breaths. Man respires, aspires, and expires. In the crowd Dea felt utterly alone, and shuddered as one shudders on the edge of a precipice. Suddenly, even while shuddering at her isolation, she regains confidence. She has found her thread of safety in the universe of shadows,—she has placed her hand on Gwynplaine's powerful head. Joy unspeakable fills her heart as she lays her rosy fingers on his thick locks. Wool when touched gives an impression of softness. Dea touched a lamb which she knew to be a lion. Her whole heart flowed out in love ineffable. She felt safe now, she had found her saviour. The public believed that they saw the contrary. To the spectators the being loved was Gwynplaine, and the saviour was Dea. "What does it matter?" thought Ursus, to whom the heart of Dea was an open book. And Dea, reassured, consoled, and delighted, adored as an angel what the people regarded as a monster.
True love never wanes. Being all soul it cannot cool. A brazier may become full of cinders; not so a star. These exquisite impressions were renewed every evening for Dea, and she was ready to weep with tenderness whilst the audience was in convulsions of laughter. Those around her were only joyful; she was happy.
The sensation of gaiety due to the sudden shock caused by the sight of Gwynplaine was evidently not intended by Ursus. He would have preferred more smiles and less laughter, and more of a literary triumph. But success consoles. He reconciled himself to this disappointment every evening, as he counted how many shillings the piles of farthings made, and how many pounds the piles of shillings made. He consoled himself, too, with the belief that after their laughter was over, "Chaos Vanquished" would continue to haunt them by reason of the noble sentiments it inculcated. Perhaps he was not altogether wrong; the foundations of a work settle down in the mind of the public. The fact is, the spectators, attentive to the wolf, the bear, to the man, then to the music, to the howlings silenced by harmony, to the night dispelled by dawn, to the chant releasing the light, accepted with a confused, dull sympathy, and with a certain emotional respect, the dramatic poem of "Chaos Vanquished," the victory of spirit over matter, ending with the triumph of man.
Such were the vulgar pleasures of the people. They sufficed them. The people had not the means of going to the elevating prize-fights of the gentry, and could not bet a thousand guineas on Helmsgail against Phelemghe-Madone, like great lords and gentlemen.